


Pushing Up Daisies

by Ordinarily



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Spoilers, Childhood Friends, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Friendship/Love, Grief/Mourning, Hydra (Marvel), Sokovia Accords, plot is hard, this is actually a shitshow, underdeveloped plan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-30
Updated: 2018-12-30
Packaged: 2019-09-29 09:12:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17200721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ordinarily/pseuds/Ordinarily
Summary: She'd promised herself that once she left she'd stay gone. Then again, that was before half the universe died.





	Pushing Up Daisies

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to get this out before the End Game trailer but that didn't happen so just ignore any discrepancies between the two. 
> 
> Also I don't know shit about anything so enjoy some poorly constructed, ambiguous resolution for Infinity War :)

The sky is so crystal blue it almost hurts. She keeps her head down and her posture hunched forward, baseball cap shielding her eyes. Surely, vitamin D deficiency will sneak up on her one of these days. She walks in quick strides with thin plastic bags wrapped in her fists, the smell of bananas wafting up from one. 

The apartment is about a block away and she doesn’t think much of the motorcycle parked across the street until there’s a hand squeezing her shoulder and she’s ready to fight whoever the fuck thought it was okay to grab her that roughly. Steve meets her gaze, jaw set and mouth taut, ready to deck her into next week. 

She has a brief thought of “ _fucking shit”_ as she catches a glimmer of worry in the azure of his eyes. They always manage to appear kind, even when they glare daggers at her. She twists out of his grip with ease and backs up a few steps out of instinct.  

_He’s too close._

He closes the distance again because Steve Rogers isn’t here to fuck around. She’s been gone for nearly a year and they have more pressing matters than her isolation tantrum. He’s wearing a hoodie, making an equal effort to avoid unsolicited attention but he’s so undeniably Captain America in everything he does that she’s surprised no one’s recognized him yet.  

_Well, this moment was nice while it lasted,_ she thinks and drops her groceries to take off sprinting. She makes it halfway across the park and honestly, she’s pretty proud of herself. HYDRA had been mean to her, but it’d been worse to Bucky and even he had a hard time matching Steve’s pace. 

He grabs her elbow and shoves her against a nearby tree, huffing through his nose. She avoids his stare. “Hey, Steve…” she singsongs, “how’re you?”

The way he grits his teeth makes her stop talking. “You tell me? My eye’s been twitchin’ for the last three days.”

“You should probably get that checked out, I don’t know, I’m not a doctor or anything, but once my aunt had this really weird thing on her arm and she didn’t do anything about it until it swelled…” she starts, slipping out of his hold. “Turns out it was cancer, but like, your eye twitch is probably definitely not cancerous, but then again—” He looks ready to sucker punch her as she tiptoes backwards, still rambling. 

“ _Or_ ,” he punctuates, inching closer for every step back she takes, “you could make my life a whole lot easier, doll, and come back to the tower with me.”

Her demeanour falls and Steve prepares himself to catch her wrist before she bolts off again. “You know I can’t do that.”

“Y/N, we need you. This is an ‘all hands on deck’ mission.”

“I think you have more than enough hands…”

His blood boils and this time he does grab her wrist, pulling her close and snarling in her face. “You _saw_ the ashes. T’Challa, Parker, Sam, Strange,  _Buck,_ Wanda, Fury, Maria, should I go on?” 

She freezes, a jolt shooting through her chest and chills crawling up her flesh. She’d only heard about half of those names. 

“We gave you, Clint, and Scott the pass. Think you could maybe make good on your debt?”

She squeezes her eyes, trying to knot the heartstrings he's attempting to pull at. He doesn't get to make her feel guilty. She had every right to back out. “Steve… I can’t, I—” 

“Scott's missing. Clint’s entire family is gone: he’s a wreck.  _We need you.”_ A latent part of her subconscious wonders why they didn't send Tony—he’d just returned to earth after all—or Nat to come find her, or why Steve wasn’t assigned Scott. He puts a hand on her shoulder now, leaning down to search for emotion in her eyes. “We’re falling apart. And I know you’re tired of being glue and I know it’s unfair of me to ask but—”

“That’s not why I left and you know it.”

“Look me in the eye and tell me it didn’t play a part.”

She can’t. _Well played, Cap._ Her expression hardens. “I. Am. Going. To. Hurt. Somebody. You don’t _want_ me on your team. Think about what you’re asking, here.”

“We’re not in halftime anymore. I have trouble imagining you’ll do any worse.”

All trace of indignation is gone. Instead, determination is written in his features, desperation in his eyes. 

***

The flight back is quiet. She holds her knees, staring out at sparse cotton, a bed of fluff and fleece amongst an incomparable blue. “Hey, Steve?”

He insisted on flying, despite the autopilot’s reassurance—it’d be a smooth ride regardless of who was in charge. Part of her thinks he went the extra mile so he wouldn’t have to talk to her. “Yeah?”

“Do you miss Peggy?”

She pictures him caught off guard, freezing but not faltering. “Every day.” 

She nods, finding comfort in his answer. “Me too.”

It was the four of them back in the 40s, a tight-knit group of friends who loved dancing and diners, young adults in their prime. She’d gotten along perfectly with Peggy and Bucky but she and Steve had always had a bit of distance—even all these years later, even before the fight—but that was fine, good, even; they always had fun in their quartet. But then Bucky fell off the train and Steve went under and Y/N was plain as day abducted, and Peggy had a whole lot of feelings left to fuel her actions.  

It was only once the remaining three of them rekindled that she learned of the Winter Soldier’s alter-ego, the sweet boy with the dimples who insisted on walking her home every night in the 40s. She’d had nowhere near the experience he did, but HYDRA still had their fair share of throwing her around like a rag doll. So she’d become Geyser; formed a bond so deep with the world it listened when she asked. 

In front of her is a cup of water and she watches as little rings form in time with the motion of the jet and minor turbulence. It spirals up and out of the plastic, per her assistance, swirling into a mini hurricane before her cloudy eyes.  

“She was it for me.”

She jumps at the proximity of his voice, turning around in her seat to face him. The water splashes as it falls back in the cup, drawing his attention momentarily. He stands there with his hands in his pockets, boyish charm in the upturned corners of his mouth so different from the deep sorrow in his irises, years of anguish built up behind the hard exterior that has become Steve Rogers.

She nods but doesn’t look at him, offering a sad smile. “I know. You were it for her too.”

“She was lucky to have you," he says.

Her head snaps up in surprise at his compliment and she discreetly scans for signs of deceit. She should know better. Steve doesn’t lie. Or joke, or kid, or jab. “Yeah, well… she didn’t have me for long.” The air around them grows cold and she doesn’t realize she’s doing it until he shivers. She apologizes, willing herself to ease up. “It’s really just us now.”

Steve shakes his head at the window. “We’re going to get Buck—all of them—we’re going to get all of them back.”

And he says it with such determination that she bites back her comment about wishful thinking.

*** 

There’s something about the way Tony carries himself—both business and playtime, sometimes she has trouble with his tone of voice.  

But when he meets her eyes, heartbreak and exhaustion settled deep in his features, he truly looks astonished. He spins in slow motion as Cap walks in with her trailing in tow, gaze flickering between the two of them, though she doesn’t give him a whole lot of time to process before she throws herself at him. He hugs back like he means it, like he’s scared and relieved and hurt, and sort of like he wants to push her away but more like he wants to hug tighter. Steve looks offended.  

“I can’t believe it,” says Tony, like a family member has risen from the dead. And honestly, that’s not too far off. 

They get coffee and sit at a round table, mulling over plans. She feels a little bit like the middle man and instincts pull her into the same old ways, though the dynamic has long since changed. These people are broken.  

Natasha runs her hands through her hair nervously while Bruce sits off to the side with his fingers pressed to his temple. Thor and Clint sit with their hands folded, loss written in their expressions as Tony spitballs. 

“That’s not going to work,” she says abruptly. Stark stops mid word, cocking his head like he’s waiting for a better idea, or at the very least an explanation bordering on apology. She glances at him. “We’re not going to be able to figure it out like this. You guys look like you haven’t slept in days, which you probably haven’t. You’re all grieving while trying to think rationally enough to bring them back. You can’t.”

They stare at her. “So what?” asks Nat. Her tone is harsh but she says it like she’s genuinely open to suggestion. 

“You stop thinking of Peter and Wanda and Sam and your family—I heard and I’m sorry—” she looks at Thor and Clint, “and everyone else who got _snapified_ and you sleep. You sleep like the world is fine and you come back tomorrow, ready to bring them back. Not one of you has taken the time to process things. You can’t work like this.”  

Steve peers at her, gritting his teeth. “How can you possibly expect—”

“I don’t expect anything. Just take the day off. Do what you have to. Cry in the shower, have a panic attack, masturbate, I don’t care, just do it and come back with a fresh headspace.”

Tony opens his mouth to argue and she stops him. “ _You._ You haven’t stopped thinking about the kid since Titan and you haven’t stopped thinking about how to bring him back since you stepped foot in your lab last week. You _reek_ of guilt, Tony. Go see Pepper _outside_ of the tower, drive around in your lambo, go see a movie.” 

He clenches his jaw, huffing through his nose like he wants to flip the table. “You weren’t there,” he says calculatingly as he gets up and stalks out, and seconds later there’s a crash in the hall. 

Everyone else rises slowly, silently hobbling off to their private quarters. Save for Steve. His chin juts out the slightest bit and his eyes are bright. Finally, he asks, “how could you tell?”

She shakes her head. “What—are you going to tell me you couldn't see it?” 

Steve shrugs. “I live here. It’s different.” 

She lifts the water out of the uncapped bottle in front of him, twisting it to flow around him in a neat little stream, before it comes crashing down like a waterfall back inside its confinement. "The human body is mostly water. If emotions run deep enough, I feel them."

He eyes her. “Did you feel... it? When it happened?”

She makes a sort of half-winded head movement. “It doesn’t feel right but it doesn’t feel… empty.” 

Determination floods his posture and he curls his hand into a fist on the table, tapping it once before standing up and marching out, leaving her with half-baked rescue plans and a whole lot of cold coffee. 

*** 

When Steve finds her the next day, she’s in the same chair, drooling over scrawled calculations and Tony’s blueprints. More of them are posted on holograms lit up around the room, and the collection of water bottles scattered over the table, the absence of food wrappers, and the same clothes she was in yesterday lead him to believe she hasn’t so much as moved to pee since he’d left her to her vices.  

There are sketches of the stones and the gauntlet to her left with small descriptions beneath them. Two lists make up a clear pattern of those who made it out and those who didn’t and Steve finds himself flinching at Bucky’s name and then at Sam's. There are details filled in, redone calculations, and added steps in her messy penmanship. It looks out of place inline with Tony’s neater writing but he doesn’t have to scrutinize to know she filled in the plot holes. She’s always been attentive to the smaller stuff, which is why she completely lost it during the Sokovia Accords.  

The day she walked out is fresh in his mind and he blinks, watching her sleeping form and remembering the way she screamed through tears about thinking it through. Neither party listened and then Rhodes was paralyzed and the Avengers were split and she... snapped.

Light rain taps against the large windows of the room. They’re slightly tinted from Tony’s preference in setting so Steve quietly asks F.R.I.D.A.Y to lift it. It doesn’t change much; the sky is still grey but he imagines the sun rising behind it all just as lightning flashes through the clouds. He stands with his hands behind his back, alternating between watching droplets splatter and roll against the glass, and beyond them where the skyline—with its diverse buildings all competing in height—is bathed in silence, still too early for any city life. It does ease his nerves a little, though he has trouble finding any beauty in it.  

Finally, he hears shuffling and turns to bid her good morning. She squints at him and rubs her temple, murmuring something about the time. F.R.I.D.A.Y supplies a sequence of numbers that is dreadful to the ear and she groans. 

“Long night?” Captain America muses. 

“Believe it or not, trying to figure out how to bring people back from the dead isn’t an easy feat.”

“Well you did a damn good job. This might actually work.”

“Is this... are you trying to say you’re _proud_ of me Cap?” She smirks, putting on her best little girl voice. 

He points a finger gun at a her, closing one eye to aim while she begs him not to, it was just a joke, Steve, please I— BAM! His hand shoots back and he makes a barreling noise at the back of his throat as she pretends to get hit, falling limp in her chair and crashing to the table. 

She stays like that and he takes a seat next to her, patting her head and combing through her hair absentmindedly until he hears a sound so faint, but it’s there: a sigh. “Is this permission to go back to sleep?” 

“Nope,” Tony quips as he storms in, disgruntled and prepared to finger wag until he grabs the papers from beneath her crossed arms, reading through her notes. “Hey, this isn’t half bad.”

“Would be easier with Wanda,” she mutters, feeling Steve twirl a strand of hair around his finger. “Does anyone in this house actually get a full eight hours or?”

Tony has the same look on his face as he did yesterday, it’s just not as insistent. “We have a war to win.” He meets Rogers’ eye, finding the same gleam of intent and nods. _He_ gets it. 

“You can’t win it with injured soldiers,” she retaliates flatly, like she’s tired of repeating herself.

“See, you keep saying that.” He’s doing a good job of keeping his voice levelled, Steve notices. “But we’ve been to the ER. The hot nurse bandaged us up. We’re good now.”

There’s a beat before she blinks, “Okay, Tony. If you mean it, I believe you. ”

And then she sits up and shuffles papers around, handing him blueprints.  

“Think you can manage?”

Tony licks his lips. “F.R.I.D.A.Y. Get Wakanda on the line.”

“ _And,_ ” Steve punctuates as Tony nearly skips out of the room, “we’re getting _you_ to bed.” 

She nods tiredly, wobbling as she stands for the first time in hours.

Suddenly, she’s lifted off the ground. She lets out a narrow squeal, scrambling to steady herself. “Back to sleep,” Steve coos, voice deep and calm, a perfect paradox to hers.  

His arms are a comfortable enough place—in more ways than one. She feels safe like this, which she tries not to dwell on because she hasn’t felt safe in years. There are always skeletons in the closet or monsters under the bed; always shadows lurking behind closed doors or drawn curtains. 

The bed dips as he drops her down on it gently, pulling back slowly until her hand traps his wrist. “Stay,” she says and it’s not small or vulnerable or shy. It’s an invite, sure, but she leaves him plenty of room to reject it. 

He doesn’t. Instead, he finds himself crawling in with her. It’s not exactly a foreign feeling: there were many sleepovers in the 40s despite the social connotations and judgemental word of mouth.

They used to come home, stumbling and staggering, swaying in a drunken haze, too tired to do anything but pile on Bucky’s sofas or Peggy's carpet. They usually settled on at least vague plans for sleeping arrangements—Steve and Bucky in one room, and Peggy and Y/N in another, or when things started changing, Steve and Peggy, and Bucky and Y/N—but those plans never stuck. They always woke up all together in a heap of tangled limbs and throbbing temples, goofy grins still plastered to their faces. 

She faces him now and whispers, “You need a shave."

“Aw,” he says, rubbing at the scruff, “it’s kinda growing on me.” 

She laughs. “What happened to that kid from Brooklyn who couldn’t grow a single chest hair?”

“He’s still in there.”

“Good.” 

It’s quiet after that and he thinks she's fallen asleep until: “Tony’s going to want to wear it, isn’t he?”

Steve lets out a breath. “Whether it’s the plan or not, I can promise you he’s building it the size of his hand.” 

***

Captain America, neatly coiffed and cleanly shaven, keeps up a timely pace as wind blows past them down the hall. He tries to talk her out of it. “Come on. You can't.” 

“‘Course I can.” She walks with purpose in her step, directly to Tony’s lab. “He shouldn't be the one to go down.”

“Let me do it. I'm the strongest of the three of us."

"Those stones don't care how strong you are, Steve. I'm not letting anyone else do it."

They linger in the doorway of the lab. _Styx_ plays beneath the sound of power tools and Y/N strains to identify the song. The stones are displayed on individual podiums, sparkling in the light. Next to them, is the skeleton of a silver gauntlet made of vibranium and Tony himself, hunched over the whirring of an electric saw. 

It’s not until he stops his work that he sees them and then he’s set in motion: “Hey, okay, so I was thinking the stones could go more like—“ he tries on the gauntlet to show them, “—here-ish,” And points to the centre of his palm. “Personal touch, you know?” 

“Tony…” she says softly. His face falls.

She waits for him to take off the gauntlet. “No, no, what is—what is that?” He indicates her commiserative expression.

“I—“ she starts.

“I’m going to wear it,” interrupts Steve. 

Y/N imagines herself dropkicking him off a cliff. 

Tony’s face turns to stone. “Don’t take this away from me.”

“You guys are so fucking _quick_ to forfeit yourselves. This was never supposed to be up for debate—” She holds her hands out in front of her, struggling with her words. "I'm—"

Tony looks inconsolable. “You’re not wearing it, Y/N." 

She begins to tremble but her voice stays level. “ _Pete_ needs someone to come back to.  _Bucky_  needs someone to come back to.” She punctuates their names in the hopes of getting her point across. "The world needs Iron Man and they need Captain America.”

“Bucky’s going to want to come back to you, too,” Steve says quietly. 

“And the world also needs Geyser,” adds Tony and she doesn't believe him for a second.

“Not more than it needs Black Panther or Scarlet Witch or Vision…” She stops a moment. “Is Vision… what happened to him?"

Vision still hasn't recovered. Tony and Bruce had tried their best but they'd ended up in a heated argument over Vision's core sensors, and decided it would be best to just keep him stable until they could work on him properly.

It’s a lick of an idea, a long shot actually, but Tony, Steve, and Y/N sit in the lab fact-checking and rerunning the math—maybe they can scrap the gauntlet altogether. Steve eventually gets frustrated with the utter science of it all and slinks back to where he can watch the smart kids geek out. He’s never felt more like a jock in his entire life.

They’re in the middle of analyzing Vision’s internal structure, when Tony’s knees give and he sinks. Steve rushes over and lifts him by the shoulders into a nearby desk chair, while Tony can’t do anything but fight for breath. 

Y/N kneels in front of the chair and uncaps a water bottle to offer him.

“Shuri would be a lot of help...” is all he says, then asks F.R.I.D.A.Y. to invite Bruce to the lab. 

*** 

“It’s gonna work,” Steve tells her the night before. The team has spent the week preparing. They're ready.

She nods but her trembling doesn’t subside.

“Look, I know. We all want them back.” 

“We could ruin it for good.”  

“Strange said—” 

“I know. Is it just me, or does that not mean shit?”

Steve grabs her wrists and forces her to sit on his bed. It seems to make her festering worse.  

“What, do we tell Vision to snap now? Make him turn back time? We could go in the soul stone, we could take—“

Steve cups her face and leans down. “Stop. We have a plan. That’s what we’re going to do.”

"It’s not full proof.”

“And when have we ever done full proof?” 

She sighs and moves out of his hold. “We weren’t gambling with lives.” 

“Yes, we were,” he insists. “Sokovia?” 

She remembers herself at the conference table, twirling a pen in hand. It made sense to sign, but she couldn’t help the unease that came with the authority complex of it all. She backed out at the last second and Tony couldn’t bring himself to understand. And then it was the three of them again: yelling and accusations and low-blows. She’d had enough. 

She stayed up in a hotel because she couldn't bear to be at the centre of it anymore—pick a side Y/N, diffuse the fight Y/N, hold the team together—but Steve had come knocking at three in the morning and Y/N felt like she was getting close to the brink. 

"Why are you here?" she asked, physically and emotionally drained.

"Because Tony was going to come see you and the only way I could get him not to was if I came instead."

"I'd rather see Tony," she told him flatly and started to close the door, until Steve shoved his foot in the way and all but barked over her shoulder.

She turned around to find Iron Man standing in the carpeted room with the patio door wide open.

Y/N felt the vein in her neck throb.

"Guess I was wrong," Steve said through gritted teeth.

"Wow. You see? Now was that so hard? Admitting you're wrong," Tony taunted.

Steve tongued the inside of his lip and lunged at him.

They crashed through the hotel room, fists and metal and jets.

Y/N lost it.

Outside, the streets split apart. Tsunamis rose in the East River and rain fell in sheets over the city.

Only when the moulding began to crack and the walls trembled did Steve freeze mid swing. They turned to look at her, blood going cold. 

Her stare was ice. 

With a gust of wind, she sent them both crashing through the patio glass and out onto the street.  

And then she collapsed.

For days, she couldn't move. Nothing,  _nothing,_ was worse than the incapacity to do anything but think.

Even after her body worked again, the guilt was intolerable. She made public apologies, avoided tabloids, and stayed out of fights until finally, she deemed herself dangerous and fled. 

Tony had called. Over and over, but she’d thrown out her phone, sold her car, and exchanged address.

She didn't intend to come back.

Y/N stumbles to rewire her response now. Steve notices and hastily apologizes. “I didn’t mean to bring up... I just meant that... you know, we've gambled lives and saved them before. Why's it so different this time?”

“I know, you're right. Just—there's a small gap.”

He squints like he's trying to remember the details. "A gap?"

"Either way you look at it, someone's trading a life." And then she smiles at him, her eyes stinging.

Realization dawns on him. “Hold on a second.” 

“And—and I’m okay with it being me if that's what it takes but… not Tony or Nat or Bruce or Thor or Clint or… _you, Steve_ … I—“

Panic prickles its way up Steve’s chest. He doesn’t want to think of this, doesn’t want to hear her say she’s okay with not making it out this time, doesn’t want to imagine one of them dead and the other—

He kisses her. To stop her from saying anymore and to stop his thoughts because dammit, he thought he couldn't possibly be scared of anything else in this world.

He stays close after he pulls away and whispers to her. “It’s going to take a helluva lot more than this to put us six feet under.”

She smiles again, tears falling over her cheeks. “You don’t believe that at all, do you?”

He kisses her again.

***  

Steve spends the night holding her hand and dropping kisses along her shoulders, while they talk about all the things they remember from the 40s: How enchanting Peggy was and how funny Bucky used to be—the extraverts of the group for sure. It's more than they've spoken... ever, she thinks.

They snicker about the trouble they got into, about the fights Steve picked despite his size—because of his size—about the boys being forced to wait outside the girls’ public restrooms because Y/N’s parents would not let her leave the house in anything they deemed inappropriate and Peggy refused to let her best friend walk around in anything _other_ than what they deemed inappropriate.  

She tells him about how she had to restart her makeup sometimes because the lighting was so terrible in there, and Steve throws his head back, laughter coating his throat: “That’s why it took you forever! My God, me an' Buck used to go on rants about how long it took the two of you to get ready.”

“Really? You never said anything.”

“Yeah, that was the best part. Peggy always walked out with her hair down and a fresh coat of lipstick, and you knew how to wear a dress. Shut us right up.”

She smiles and buries her nose in his shoulder, and so the night goes.

In the morning, she finds him suited up. He paces around the bedroom and knocks his fists together in anticipation, tightening and retightening the straps over his knuckles. 

“Did you sleep?” she asks, eyes following his movements.

He spins on his heels, startled, then shakes his head. “No. Did you?”

“Little bit.”

His eyes are bright, so clear she feels like she can nearly see through them. He fights for what to say next, still fiddling with his gloves.

She gets up and reaches for her jacket, shrugging it on. By the time she's done lacing up her boots, he's standing next to her.

When she meets his eye, he puts on his most confident grin. "Ready?"

She stands a little taller and squares her shoulders. “Let’s go save half the universe, Cap.”

***


End file.
